An Analysis on the Temporal Patterns of Heat Island Effect in Kaohsiung

Yu-Long Chao

Abstract—According to the hourly temperature data from the database of Environmental Protection Administration, this study compared the temperature in January and July 2011 in three downtown locations with those in three suburban locations. Possible causes of temperature differences between downtown and suburban locations were discussed; in particular the temperature rise resulted from economic activities such as the traffic in rush hours and waste heat of air conditioners of buildings. The temperature records were analyzed based on hours and days and hence day patterns and week patterns of temperature differences between downtown and suburban were obtained. Results revealed that temperature change was directly influenced by surrounding physical environment but certain patterns of temperature differences still emerged. With respect to day patterns, temperature differences reached peaks around 2 PM and were in greater variances in summer than in winter. For week patterns, by contrasting weekday temperature with weekend temperature, it was found that cycles of temperature peaks probably caused by economic activities were obvious during weekdays in winter. Downtown was also found warmer than suburban at winter nights, consistent with the phenomenon of heat island effect. Practical implications for urban environmental management were discussed.

Index Terms—Heat island effect, time series, urbanization.

Yu-Long Chao is with the National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan (e-mail: chaoyulong@gmail.com).